CATDAT Damaging Earthquakes Database 2011 – Annual Review

2011 has played host to the largest two earthquakes, economically speaking, in the history of the countries of Japan and New Zealand. The M9.0 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 11th March, 2011 proved to be the most expensive earthquake of all time, causing between $400-700 billion USD in total losses and approximately 19000 deaths, while the Christchurch earthquake (a M6.3 quake close to the city of Christchurch) caused a huge building stock loss and approximately $15-20 billion USD damage with around 80% insured losses. Their respective aftershocks caused further damage. Significant losses were also seen in Turkey from the Van earthquake in October, in the India-Nepal-Tibet region in September, in China from numerous earthquakes in the Yunnan and Xinjiang Provinces and in the USA from the Virginia earthquake.

Author’s Notes

We hope that you enjoy the CATDAT Yearly Review of Damaging Earthquakes in 2011. The CATDAT Database has been built up by collecting earthquake, flood and other natural disaster loss data for quite a few years since 2003 at the University of Adelaide, with a more concerted effort in the past 3 to 4 years to build up the databases further. This report in 2011 only shows a small percentage of the data collected but a new and exciting future in earthquake reporting. In the last 12 months, we have reported constantly on www.earthquake-report.com, founded by Armand Vervaeck, and worked tirelessly to provide the best quality scientific reporting of felt earthquake and volcanic events worldwide and CATDAT to provide detailed accounts on every damaging earthquake worldwide.

The purpose of this report is to present the damaging earthquakes in the year 2011 around the world that were entered into the CATDAT Damaging Earthquake Database in terms of their socio-economic effects. This 2011 report showcases the work that CATDAT, in collaboration with earthquake-report.com / SOS Earthquakes, is doing.

A big thanks to Maren for supporting me through the sporadic late nights (when earthquakes have occurred), as well as with SMS updates, translations, constant earthquake discussions and intellectual conversations. I would also like to thank my parents, Anne and Trevor, and also my sister, Katherine, and brother-in-law, Quentin, for the numerous reports and papers I have sent them and they have checked and for the numerous updates as to natural disaster data.

A big thank you goes to the General Sir John Monash Foundation (supported by the Australian Government) that has been funding my PhD research at Karlsruhe at KIT/CEDIM and allowed me to choose this location from all worldwide institutions (and in particular I would like to thank Peter Binks). I would like to also thank the University of Adelaide, Université Joseph Fourier Grenoble, University of Pavia and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology for my education and for their promotion of learning and development outside the course environment.

Thank you also to the Center of Disaster Management and Risk Reduction Technology (CEDIM) for supporting me in my research in the natural disaster field. In addition, I would like to thank Friedemann Wenzel, Bijan Khazai and Tina Kunz-Plapp for their interest, support and motivating me to publish my work. I have also been aided by a number of interested individuals for components of the database but with the amount of data around on historical damaging earthquakes, I am always interested in new reports, studies, questions, comments, improvements and collaboration.

I would also like to urge people’s involvement with some great worldwide earthquake and natural disaster risk related initiatives out there – just to mention a few; Willis Research Network (WRN), EERI, USGS-PAGER, GEM, EMSC-CSEM, GEO-CAN and WAPMERR.

Many thanks,

James Daniell

The data contained in this report is up to date as of 4 January 2012. The author takes no responsibility for errors that may be in the data and also misuse of the data provided. The EQLIPSE Building Inventory Database, CATDAT Natural Disaster and Socioeconomic Databases, OPAL Project, associated data and publications remain the intellectual property of James Daniell and are not to be reproduced in any form without permission.

SOS Earthquakes non-profit organization and Earthquake-report.com were developed to report about earthquakes and volcanoes in the best possible way and to create value-added information with a scientific and earthquake loss estimation perspective.

Earthquake Report bridges the gap in-between science and basic understanding.
News in the site not only appears very quickly, but we will always try to bring “Added Value” and “Scientific/Social Insight” news that you will not find anywhere else, as well as data from CATDAT.

Earthquake Report focusses on the Impact of Earthquakes and Volcanoes on society. We will search, analyse and create in-depth socio-economic reports for unique news, even in the most remote places on Earth. Victims of an earthquake in the jungle of Papua New Guinea merit the same attention as those people living in San Francisco, Tokyo, Port-au-Prince or Concepción.

Earthquake-Report.com is the information part of SOS Earthquakes, a non-profit organization specializing in earthquakes, with 5 important goals:

SOS Earthquakes was founded in August 2010. SOS Earthquakes and Earthquake-Report.com are private initiatives to make the world just a little bit better. Every single donated dollar as a lifeline that strengthens our initiative and is needed for server space, programming and increased data gathering capability.

We welcome also the support of STRATEGIC PARTNERS who will enable us to reach as many people as possible. Strategic partners can be individuals or companies who want to make the world less traumatic, just like we do, or people or companies who require the latest damage, casualty, aid, economic and social data from earthquakes.

In this respect earthquake-report.com and CATDAT together provide the latest and best up-to-date information post-earthquake with a rapidly growing number of subscribers and data input sources.

Please contact me or James to make a donation or to become a strategic partner. Without monetary support, this service unfortunately cannot continue.

In addition, I would like to thank my wife, Gerda, for her loving support through my 24-hour a day reporting and work with earthquake-report.com, and also to my family and friends as well as the millions of earthquake-report.com readers and subscribers. Thankyou and I hope that we can continue the service in 2012.

Many thanks,

Armand Vervaeck

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Author’s Notes
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES
LIST OF TABLES
1 Introduction
2 What is CATDAT?
2.1 What is contained in the database?
2.2 Entry criteria
3 Damaging Earthquakes from 2011 in the CATDAT Damaging EQ Database
3.1 Where have the CATDAT damaging earthquakes occurred?
3.2 Casualty-bearing 2011 earthquakes
3.3 2011 earthquakes with over 100 people homeless or requiring shelter
3.4 Economic Losses from earthquakes in 2011 over $5 million US
3.5 Insured Losses from earthquakes in 2011 so far.
3.6 A quick comparison of the New Zealand and Tohoku Earthquakes in Numbers
4 A quick comparison of the 2011 Losses to the CATDAT Damaging Earthquakes Database since 1900
5 Conclusion
6 Main References
Appendix A: Summary pages of each 2011 damaging earthquake

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 – The process used to create the CATDAT Damaging Earthquakes Database (Daniell, 2011)
Figure 2 – The CATDAT Damaging Earthquakes Database parameters (Daniell, 2003-2011a)
Figure 3 – The location of the 121+ CATDAT damaging earthquakes in various countries during 2011
Figure 4 – The number of earthquakes per country in the 121+ CATDAT damaging earthquakes in various countries during 2011
Figure 5 – The fatal earthquakes in 2011 in the CATDAT Damaging Earthquakes Database.
Figure 6 – The casualty bearing earthquakes in 2011 in the CATDAT Damaging Earthquakes Database.
Figure 7 – The number of buildings damaged or destroyed in each 2011 CATDAT damaging earthquake
Figure 8 – The relative building damage index in each 2011 CATDAT damaging earthquake
Figure 9 – The number of homeless people in each 2011 CATDAT damaging earthquake
Figure 10 – The direct economic losses in each 2011 CATDAT damaging earthquake
Figure 11 – Yearly Direct Economic Losses from CATDAT Damaging Earthquakes showing 2011 as the highest loss year of the past 111 years.
Figure 12 – Yearly Total Economic Losses from CATDAT Damaging Earthquakes showing 2011 as the highest loss year of the past 111 years.
Figure 13 – Yearly Earthquake and Secondary Effect deaths in CATDAT for developing and developed nations through time – 2011 shows the largest death toll from a developed nation (HDI (2011) > 0.8)
Figure 14 – Major event losses in the CATDAT damaging earthquakes database from 1900-2011 (Daniell, 2003-2011a)
Figure 15 –Cumulative deaths and economic losses related to global 2011-dollar GDP (PPP) and population

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 – List of casualty-bearing earthquakes in 2011
Table 2 – List of homeless-bearing earthquakes in 2011
Table 3 – Final loss estimates for the 2011 Tohoku EQ disaggregated for tsunami, powerplant and earthquake using Japanese and CATDAT data as of 18th October
Table 4 – List of economic losses in earthquakes in 2011 with over $5 million USD or other notable losses (excluding nuclear disasters)
Table 5 – List of insured losses in earthquakes in 2011 so far over $1m
Table 6 – List of highest insured losses (1900-2011) in 2011 Country CPI adjusted $ international
Table 7 – A comparison of the Christchurch and Tohoku earthquakes in terms of numbers

1 Introduction

2011 has played host to the largest two earthquakes, economically speaking, in the history of the countries of Japan and New Zealand. The M9.0 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 11th March, 2011 proved to be the most expensive earthquake of all time, causing between $400-700 billion USD in total losses and approximately 19000 deaths, while the Christchurch earthquake (a M6.3 quake close to the city of Christchurch) caused a huge building stock loss and approximately $15-20 billion USD damage with around 80% insured losses. Their respective aftershocks caused further damage. Significant losses were also seen in Turkey from the Van earthquake in October, in the India-Nepal-Tibet region in September, in China from numerous earthquakes in the Yunnan and Xinjiang Provinces and in the USA from the Virginia earthquake.

In addition, in the first half of 2011, the news came out that the death toll in Haiti was overestimated significantly. A report from a US-based consultancy group, LTL Strategies, as part of a USAID report, showed that the death toll was between 46190 and 84961. Daniell et al. (2010f, 2011j) using various approaches concluded that a death toll of 136933, with a range of 121843 to 167082 dead, was reasonable. Both of these totals are a massive reduction on the 316000 deaths quoted by the President on 12th January, 2011.

Please note that for the purposes of this report due to different meanings of billion and million worldwide:
1 billion = 1,000,000,000 or 109 1 million = 1,000,000 or 106

Final loss estimates for the 2011 Tohoku EQ disaggregated for tsunami, powerplant and earthquake – Japanese and CATDAT data

In Billion USD

Earthquake

Tsunami

Powerplant

Direct Loss Inland

77

0

58-71

Direct Loss Coastal

48-81

112-145

Total Direct Loss

125-158 (42%)

112-145 (39%)

58-71 (19%)

Indirect Loss

69-132

64-113

51-91

Total Economic Loss

194-290 (41%)

176-258 (36%)

109-162 (23%)

2. What is CATDAT?

CATDAT originated as a series of databases that has been collected by the author from many sources over the years (2003 onwards). It includes global data on floods, volcanoes and earthquakes (and associated effects). This report will focus on the damaging earthquakes in 2011, and a comparison as provided by the Damaging Earthquakes Database part of CATDAT. This database has been presented at the Australian Earthquake Engineering Society Conference in 2010 in Perth, Australia, in the form of 3 papers, and the data was also used to form an Asia-Pacific comparison of flood and earthquake socio-economic loss in the CECAR5 conference in Sydney, Australia, 2010. The details of the database can be found by typing “CATDAT Damaging Earthquakes Database” into Google and searching for the Daniell et al. (2011) paper in the journal, NHESS.

As of January 2012 in CATDAT v5.0328, over 19000 sources of information have been utilised to present data from over 12300 historical damaging earthquakes, with over 7000 earthquakes since 1900 examined and validated before insertion into the CATDAT damaging earthquakes database.

2.1 What is contained in the database?

Each validated earthquake includes the following parameters filled in to the best available detail:-

ISO3166-2 Country code, including Kosovo and South Sudan; ISO Country Name.

Human Development Index of country; HDI Classification; Economic Classification; Social Classification; Urbanity Index; Population at time of event; Nominal GDP at time of event – split into developed or developing countries.

3 Damaging Earthquakes from 2011 in the CATDAT Damaging EQ Database

3.1 Where have the CATDAT damaging earthquakes occurred?

There have been at least 121 damaging earthquakes in 2011. These have occurred in the following countries, as shown in the diagram below. Note that events need to correspond to the criteria set out in the section above. It was seen that the Crete earthquake of M6.2, with minor car damage in Iraklion and minor non-structural house damage caused less than the criteria needed to be classified as a “CATDAT Damaging Earthquake”. There were many other “nearly” CATDAT damaging earthquakes during the year that are all reported on earthquake-report.com before CATDAT ranking.

There have been 27 damaging earthquakes in Japan, mainly aftershocks as a result of the 11th March Tohoku earthquake, 19 damaging earthquakes in China (up from 15 last year) that are classified under the CATDAT criteria, and 17 damaging earthquakes in New Zealand (mainly in Christchurch and as aftershocks of the 21st February earthquake).

3.2 Casualty-bearing 2011 earthquakes

There have been at least 24 fatal earthquakes in 2011. These are shown on the following diagram.

The most fatalities from an earthquake in 2011 were in the Japanese tsunami where over 19000 people were killed. However, most of these fatalities were due to the tsunami which was a result of the earthquake. It is unknown how many victims have died directly due to earthquake shaking action. As was reported by earthquake-report.com from NPA back in April about the first 13135 victims, 92.5% were drowned (12143), 4.4% were crushed to death mainly in tsunami collapsed houses (578), 1.1% were burned to death in various fires (148), with others killed via hypothermia and other causes. It will never be known how many died due to the earthquake, as separated from the tsunami; however, the autopsies give us an indicator that we can expect that about 1.0% of the 4.4% crushed were probably in earthquake collapsed houses.

In addition, we can assume a proportion of the remaining 2% that were unknown were also earthquake-related (a high value of 10% could be assumed). This would leave about 1.2% or about 158. When extrapolating for the final 6000 deaths that were not stress or chronic disease related, then the total is about 210. This value corresponds quite well to the 137 non-tsunami impacted deaths that have been recorded in the non-coastal areas. Some of the non-coastal deaths, however, were due to heart attack, fire or landslide.

As of 1st January 2012, 15844 have been killed and 3451 are missing (19295 in total). Of the 19295, around 600 are assumed to have died from earthquake-related stress and chronic disease. Approximately 210 should be earthquake-collapse related. Around 250 could be related to other causes such as fire, landslides etc. About 94% of deaths were tsunami related.

In addition, at least 36 other injury-bearing earthquakes have occurred in the world, making a total of 60 known casualty-bearing earthquakes for 2011.

The Van earthquakes in Turkey in October and November caused 604 deaths and 40 deaths respectively. Most of these were due to building collapse, thus causing the largest proportion of the 1335 shaking-related fatalities for the year. Christchurch with 181 deaths, mainly due to the collapse of 3 reinforced concrete buildings, also was a large event.

Table 1 – List of casualty-bearing earthquakes in 2011

EQ Name

Cnt. ISO

Date

Best Estimate of Fatalities

Range of Fatalities

Heavy Injuries

Injuries or Slight Injuries

Haiti

HT

12.01.2010

137000 (6-T)

(46000-164000)

310928

Tohoku, Sendai, Great Eastern

JP, US, ID, EC, PE, CL

11.03.2011

19295-JP (18235-T, 210-SHK, 250-F,600-OTH), 1-ID, 1-US

(19000-19295)

5652

Van and Ercis

TR

23.10.2011

604 (2-HA)

(604-604)

4152

Christchurch

NZ

21.02.2011

181 (10-L)

(181-185)

164

2000

Myanmar

MM, TH, LA, CN

24.03.2011

151 (10-L)

(75-151)

212

Sikkim

IN, NP, CN, BT, BD

18.09.2011

111 (97-IN, 7-CN, 6-NP, 1-BD) (some-L)

(111-111)

many

Van Aftershock

TR

09.11.2011

40

(40-40)

260

Yingjiang

CN

10.03.2011

26

(26-26)

134

180

Central Asia

UZ, KG, TJ

19.07.2011

14 (1-HA)

(14-14)

35

66

Lorca

ES

11.05.2011

9

(9-10)

3

400

Sendai Aftershock

JP

07.04.2011

4

(2-4)

28

268

Guatemala

GT

19.09.2011

4 (3-L)

(1-4)

103

Eastern Honshu Aftershock

JP

11.04.2011

4 (3-L)

(3-7)

3

7

Simav Kutahya

TR

19.05.2011

3 (2-HA)

(2-3)

1

121

SW Pakistan

PK

18.01.2011

3 (2-HA)

(3-3)

9

0

Singkil

ID

05.09.2011

3 (2-HA)

(3-3)

0

0

Guerrero

MX

11.12.2011

2

(2-2)

0

4

Kahnuj

IR

15.06.2011

2

(2-2)

0

0

Sendai Aftershock

JP

11.03.2011

1

(1-1)

0

inc. 11/03 Toh.

Miyagi Aftershock

JP

11.03.2011

1

(1-1)

0

inc. 11/03 Toh.

Ica

PE

28.10.2011

1 (1-L)

(1-1)

16

88

Myanmar

MM, IN

04.02.2011

1

(1-1)

unk.

unk.

10km SE of Christchurch

NZ

13.06.2011

1 (1-HA)

(1-1)

0

45

S Java

ID

03.04.2011

1 (1-HA)

(1-1)

0

0

Tamil Nadu

IN

12.08.2011

1

(1-1)

0

0

20km NE Lyttleton Aftershock

NZ

23.12.2011

0

(0-0)

0

inc. 23/12

Nagano Aftershock

JP

11.03.2011

0

(0-0)

0

inc. 11/03 Nag.

Nagano Aftershock 2

JP

11.03.2011

0

(0-0)

0

inc. 11/03 Nag.

Pahae Jae District

ID

14.06.2011

0

(0-0)

0

130

Bali

ID

13.10.2011

0

(0-0)

4

86

10km E Christchurch Aftershock

NZ

23.12.2011

0

(0-0)

0

60

Nagano

JP

11.03.2011

0

(0-0)

1

56

Fujiyama

JP

15.03.2011

0

(0-0)

3

51

Sasan Gir, Junagadh

IN

20.10.2011

0

(0-0)

6

34

Mamasani

IR

05.01.2011

0

(0-0)

22

15

Mindinao

PH

07.11.2011

0

(0-0)

10

21

Christchurch Aftershock 1

NZ

22.02.2011

0

(0-0)

10

20

Atushi City

CN

11.08.2011

0

(0-0)

4

17

Haiti

HT

24.06.2011

0

(0-0)

0

20

Matsumoto

JP

29.06.2011

0

(0-0)

2

13

Sulawesi

ID

24.04.2011

0

(0-0)

1

13

Suruga Bay

JP

01.08.2011

0

(0-0)

2

11

Kawauchi

JP

30.07.2011

0

(0-0)

0

11

Toksun County

CN

08.06.2011

0

(0-0)

0

7

Tengchong County

CN

20.06.2011

0

(0-0)

3

3

Tengchong County 2

CN

09.08.2011

0

(0-0)

2

4

Southern Ibaraki Prefecture

JP

16.04.2011

0

(0-0)

0

6

Virginia

US

23.08.2011

0

(0-0)

0

5

Luhuo County

CN

10.04.2011

0

(0-0)

1

3

Christchurch Aftershock 2

NZ

22.02.2011

0

(0-0)

1

2

Sasan Gir, Junagadh

IN

12.11.2011

0

(0-0)

0

3

Honshu

JP

09.03.2011

0

(0-0)

0

2

Eastern Honshu Aftershock

JP

12.04.2011

0

(0-0)

0

2

Elazig

TR

23.06.2011

0

(0-0)

0

2

Miyagi Aftershock

JP

19.08.2011

0

(0-0)

0

2

Oklahoma

US

06.11.2011

0

(0-0)

0

2

Gifu Prefecture

JP

14.12.2011

0

(0-0)

1

0

Yangjiang 1

CN

01.01.2011

0

(0-0)

0

1

Yangjiang 3

CN

01.02.2011

0

(0-0)

0

1

Akita

JP

01.04.2011

0

(0-0)

0

1

Ibaraki

JP

20.11.2011

0

(0-0)

0

1

3.3 2011 earthquakes with over 100 people homeless or requiring shelter

The earthquakes which impacted the most people were the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami, the Sikkim earthquake in the India/Nepal/China/Bhutan/Bangladesh region and the earthquake in Van, Turkey. Although generally linked to casualties, some major earthquakes have very few casualties, yet high numbers of respective homeless. For earthquakes with smaller numbers of homeless people, estimates are not usually provided and need to be calculated by red tagged buildings, with a lowest estimate being those people living in destroyed buildings. A number of earthquakes in 2011 had unknown homeless levels.

The number of buildings damaged or destroyed in each of the 121 damaging earthquakes is shown in the following diagram. Over 1,000,000 buildings were damaged in the Japan earthquake/tsunami.

Also shown is the relative extent of building damage including destroyed buildings, as a ratio of 0.85 and damaged buildings with 0.15. This shows the Van, Sikkim, Christchurch and Japan earthquakes as having the greatest extent of damage this year.

The Japan earthquake caused the most homeless in 2011 with somewhere between 300000 and 550000 people homeless at some point in the disaster. Many moved into other forms of accommodation. Although the casualty toll was not high in Turkey, the calculated number of homeless was about 270000, exacerbated by winter weather conditions and the low development of the region. The Sikkim earthquake also caused just under 100000 homeless. Other major homeless tolls were seen in some Chinese earthquakes.The number of homeless in each damaging earthquake are summarised in the following diagram.

Although the overall damage was much reduced by good earthquake building practice in NZ, due to the red tag level as the result of liquefaction and higher post-earthquake standards in New Zealand than in many other countries, the Christchurch, N.Z., earthquake has a large number of people displaced. Most have moved in with friends and family, or have moved; however, they still count as displaced from their pre-earthquake state. 6592 properties are currently red zoned by CERA.

3.4 Economic Losses from earthquakes in 2011 over $5 million US

Economic losses from earthquakes in 2011 have been dominated by the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. The combination of these direct losses with the predicted indirect losses to be borne over the next few years has been calculated to be around $594 billion US, with a range of between $479 billion US and $710 billion US. Of these, direct losses will reach between $294 billion US and $374 billion US.

Approximately 70% of the capital stock is inland as compared to around 30% of the capital stock on the coast in the provinces of Miyagi, Iwate, Fukushima and Ibaraki, according to the Japanese Cabinet Office. Extrapolating the damage in other prefectures, the Japanese Cabinet Office estimate should be about $231 billion once $23 billion loss in other prefectures is added. In addition, the estimate of the Miyagi Prefecture of incurred direct losses (incomplete as of 17/10/2011) is 11% greater than the original Cabinet estimate. With currency changes and this increase, the direct loss estimate at this point from the Japanese government appears to be $271 billion (without the additional $58-71 billion expected from Fukushima) (Daniell et al., 2011b).

In the case of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, it is difficult to know the final discretisation of earthquake and tsunami losses; however, the possible outcome is about 39% economic losses due to tsunami ($127 billion) and 43% due to the earthquake ($144 billion), with about 18% due to the Fukushima disaster ($59 billion). The data from Miyagi prefecture has shown these percentages to be realistic. On the other hand, approximately 94.5% of the deaths are expected to be tsunami related, with only a small percentage (1.2%) expected due to earthquake shaking. Direct Losses are in the order of $335 billion, with indirect losses around $260 billion expected with all impacts combined (Daniell et al., 2011b).

Table 3 – Final loss estimates for the 2011 Tohoku EQ disaggregated for tsunami, powerplant and earthquake using Japanese and CATDAT data as of 18th October

In Billion USD

Earthquake

Tsunami

Powerplant

Direct Loss Inland

77

0

58-71

Direct Loss Coastal

48-81

112-145

Total Direct Loss

125-158 (42%)

112-145 (39%)

58-71 (19%)

Indirect Loss

69-132

64-113

51-91

Total Economic Loss

194-290 (41%)

176-258 (36%)

109-162 (23%)

The Christchurch earthquakes on the 21st February, 13th June and 23rd December also had significant economic losses totalling well over $20 billion US. As a % of GDP, this earthquake caused the highest losses in 2011. Much of this damage can be deemed to have been caused by liquefaction, with at least 10000 homes expected to be deemed to be on unliveable land.

The Sikkim earthquake on the 18th September 2011 was deemed to have caused at least 1 lakh crore rupees (1000 billion rupees or $22.3 billion US) damage in Sikkim, as estimated early after the disaster (Sikkim Ministry on 21st September 2011). However, as the net capital stock is at the most approximately $3.9 billion US (about 200 billion rupees) in Sikkim according to CATDAT, it is hard to believe the initial assessment of the ministry; thus this value has been ignored.

However, a more reliable estimate is approximately $1.7 billion US damage for total damage in India. In addition about $200 million US damage was caused in Tibet (China), and slightly higher in eastern Nepal. As well, losses in Bhutan occurred with around 6000 buildings damaged. In total, an estimated $2.25 billion US damage occurred.

Although not causing a high absolute value of damage, the Van earthquake in Turkey caused a large impact on the Van Province. The Van Province GDP can be assumed to be around 3.3 billion USD (2011). Generally such disasters have taken about 15‐33% of provincial GDP in the past, and using a factor system to calculate this in the Van Province, around 550 million‐1.25 billion USD is a reasonable estimate. Outlier estimates suggest a higher range of up to 2.2 billion USD. Van is one of the poorest regions of Turkey. In the rural areas, sheep and cattle farming is a common form of income.

The Nagano earthquake of 11th March, Fujiyama earthquake of 15th March and the Tohoku aftershock on the 7th April also caused significant losses.

The damaging earthquakes of China were dominated by the economic losses from the Yingjiang earthquake of $407 million US (2.687 billion CNY or 26.87亿元).

In total, 54 earthquakes recorded losses in excess of $5m USD in 2011, as compared to 33 earthquakes in 2010. Many of these recorded losses were caused by aftershocks in Christchurch and Tohoku. Shown in the following diagram are the losses of earthquakes in 2011.

The next table shows the loss range of the major economic loss events in 2011.

3.5 Insured Losses from earthquakes in 2011 so far.

The losses in the reinsurance domain for 2011 have been the largest cumulative annual loss in history for earthquakes. This will be seen in the following section. The table below shows the insured loss ranges for each damaging earthquake with insurance loss in 2011. Many more details are available on earthquake-report.com.

Table 5 – List of insured losses in earthquakes in 2011 so far over $1m

Earthquake

Country ISO

Date

Insured Loss Range

Maule

CL

27.02.2010

$8500m ($7566m-$12000m)

Tohoku, Sendai, Great Eastern

JP, US, ID, EC, PE, CL

11.03.2011

$36000.00m ($29400.00m-$45000.00m)

Christchurch

NZ

21.02.2011

$13000.00m ($11000.00m-$16250.00m)

10km SE of Christchurch

NZ

13.06.2011

$2340.00m ($1950.00m-$3924.38m)

Fujiyama

JP

15.03.2011

$400.00m ($110.00m-$500.00m)

10km E Christchurch Aftershock

NZ

23.12.2011

$243.75m ($203.13m-$406.25m)

Sendai Aftershock

JP

07.04.2011

$220.00m ($165.00m-$330.00m)

Nagano

JP

11.03.2011

$110.00m ($55.00m-$165.00m)

Virginia

US

23.08.2011

$100.00m ($100.00m-$100.00m)

Lorca

ES

11.05.2011

$99.00m ($99.00m-$125.00m)

Van and Ercis

TR

23.10.2011

$44.00m ($24.20m-$200.00m)

Christchurch Aftershock 1

NZ

22.02.2011

$40.63m ($28.44m-$81.25m)

10km E of Christchurch

NZ

13.06.2011

$40.63m ($40.63m-$40.63m)

Matsumoto

JP

29.06.2011

$33.00m ($22.00m-$55.00m)

10km NE Diamond Harbour Aftershock

NZ

16.04.2011

$24.38m ($5.69m-$32.50m)

20km NE Lyttleton Aftershock

NZ

23.12.2011

$24.38m ($16.25m-$40.63m)

Christchurch Aftershock 2

NZ

22.02.2011

$20.31m ($20.31m-$20.31m)

10km SW of Christchurch

NZ

19.01.2011

$16.88m ($11.26m-$22.51m)

20km SW of Christchurch

NZ

04.02.2011

$13.89m ($9.26m-$18.53m)

Hornby

NZ

21.06.2011

$12.19m ($9.75m-$20.31m)

Oklahoma

US

06.11.2011

$12.00m ($10.00m-$20.00m)

Christchurch Aftershock

NZ

09.10.2011

$10.56m ($8.13m-$14.63m)

Sikkim

IN, NP, CN, BT, BD

18.09.2011

$10.00m ($5.00m-$50.00m)

Simav Kutahya

TR

19.05.2011

$9.75m ($7.00m-$14.00m)

10km E Christchurch Aftershock

NZ

20.03.2011

$8.13m ($4.06m-$20.31m)

Kecsked

HU

29.01.2011

$5.00m ($5.00m-$5.00m)

Yingjiang

CN

10.03.2011

$5.00m ($5.00m-$5.00m)

20km SW of Christchurch

NZ

05.06.2011

$4.88m ($2.44m-$8.94m)

Canterbury

NZ

10.05.2011

$4.06m ($1.63m-$8.13m)

Cook Strait

NZ

03.12.2011

$4.06m ($1.63m-$8.13m)

Van Edremit

TR

09.11.2011

At least $1.65m ($1.21m-$2.20m)

The Maule, Chile, earthquake in 2010 represented the 3rd highest absolute insurance loss from an earthquake. The two major economic loss earthquakes this year (Tohoku and Christchurch) have now slotted into number 1 and number 3 on the all-time insured losses rankings in CATDAT from earthquakes.

3.6 A quick comparison of the New Zealand and Tohoku Earthquakes in Numbers

The two most impacting largest earthquakes of the year will now be compared. In comparison to last year, both Japan and New Zealand have very high development and were both able to cover their economic and social losses internally; yet much aid was still given internationally for these disasters.

Table 7 – A comparison of the Christchurch and Tohoku earthquakes in terms of numbers

Parameter

Christchurch, NZ

Tohoku EQ, Japan

Magnitude

6.343Ml

9.0Mw

Hyp. Depth (km)

5, onshore

24, offshore

Max. Intensity

X

IX

Tsunamigenic

Yes (local, landslide)

Yes (Pacific-wide)

Largest Aftershock (Mw)

n/a, since possibly an aftershock

7.7-7.9

Total damaged buildings

156459 (6592 red zone CERA)

1038854 (127185 destroyed)

Fatalities

177 dead, 4 missing = 181

15844 dead, 3451 missing = 19295

Injuries

2164

5652

Homeless

Approx. 40000

Approx. 450000

Economic Losses (USD)

incl. nuclear disasters

$16bn ($15bn-$20bn) Direct

$594.5bn ($479bn-$710bn) Total

$334.5bn ($295bn-$374bn) Direct

As a % of Nominal GDP (PPP)

9.48% (8.88%-11.85%) Direct

12.66% (10.20%-15.12%) Total

7.13% (6.28%-7.97%) Direct

As a % of Nom. GDP

12.95% (12.14%-16.19%) Direct

9.50% (7.65%-11.34%) Total

5.34% (4.71%-5.98%) Direct

GDP (PPP) per capita highest year, 1980 to 2011

2011

2011

Total Insured Loss (USD)

$13bn ($11bn-$16.25bn)

$36bn ($29.4bn-$45bn)

Total Int. Aid (ReliefWeb)

Approx. $110mn USD (Appeal)

Approx. $4000mn USD (Red Cross)

Transparency International Corruption Index

1st/183, 9.5/10 (Dec. 2011)

=14th/183, 8/10 (Dec. 2011)

Population density in affected regions

Canterbury region (12.4/km2), 595000

Miyagi (321/km2), 2337513

Fukushima (154/km2), 2028752

Iwate (90/km2), 1330530

Ibaraki (486/km2), 2964141

Chiba (1203/km2), 6201046

Population density in most affected cities

Christchurch (843/km2), 390000

Sendai City (1305/km2), 1031704

Total Population 2011

4.434 million

127.105 million

Rate of natural increase

7.8 per 1000

-0.02 per 1000

HDI (2011)

0.908 (5th/187)

0.901 (12th/187)

Non-Income HDI (2011)

0.978 (2nd/187)

0.940 (10 th/187)

Unemployment Increase

962 (17.88% increase)

70000 in the 3 most affected regions (75% increase)

4 A quick comparison of the 2011 Losses to the CATDAT Damaging Earthquakes Database since 1900

In the next section, a few diagrams will be shown to demonstrate the holistic comparison of the year 2011 in terms of earthquake losses compared with other years. It can be seen quite clearly that the year 2011 has eclipsed all other years in terms of loss, even beating the 2011 dollar-adjusted value of the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923. Since 1900, 2.128 trillion USD (2011) damage has occurred due to earthquakes worldwide, with 17% of it occurring in 2011.

In terms of total economic losses including indirect effects for major earthquakes, the Tohoku earthquake this year are predicted to have approximately $260 billion US of indirect losses due to global supply chain impacts, business interruption, associated losses and other indirect effects. The overall losses including indirect effects due to earthquakes are now approximately $3.14 trillion US (2011-adjusted) since 1900, of which approximately 20% has occurred in the year 2011 (around $624.5 billion US in total losses).

Figure 12 – Yearly Direct Economic Losses from CATDAT Damaging Earthquakes showing 2011 as the highest
loss year of the past 111 years.

In terms of death tolls, the approximately 20000 killed this year is about on the annual average for the past 111 years. Over the past 111 years, the average death toll has been 21800 deaths per year. The interesting fact is that this was the highest death toll year in developed nations versus developing nations.

Figure 13 – Yearly Earthquake and Secondary Effect deaths in CATDAT for developing and developed nations through time – 2011 shows the largest death toll from a developed nation (HDI (2011) > 0.8)

A figure showing the effects of worldwide earthquakes in the past in terms of direct economic losses (in this diagram, the Japanese disaster was pegged at $253.5 billion US) and also deaths can be seen.

The following diagram shows the worldwide relationship of cumulative deaths versus population, and direct and total economic losses versus worldwide GDP (Purchasing Power Parity adjusted). It can be seen that, currently, the death toll from earthquakes is reducing versus increasing population, hopefully showing that better disaster mitigation, management and preparedness is occurring worldwide, as well as better building practices.

The trend in terms of economic losses was one of a reasonably linear nature until the Tohoku event of this year. The data has been 2011 adjusted in terms of economic losses. The trend now shows an increase with respect to GDP in the last year.

5 Conclusion

2011 has been the highest economic loss year on record from earthquakes and secondary effects, but a less than average year for fatalities directly from earthquake shaking. Including tsunami and secondary effects, this represents a below average year for deaths from earthquakes. With around 57.8 million people dying this year around the world, around 0.035% have been due to earthquakes and tsunamis.

In Japan, the earthquake and tsunami accounted for 1.6% of deaths in the country in 2011. In NZ, the earthquake accounted for 0.62% of deaths in the country in 2011 or 4.6% of deaths in the Canterbury region in 2011. The Turkish earthquakes of 23rd October and 9th November caused 5.6% of deaths in the Van Province in 2011, yet less than 0.2% of deaths nationally in Turkey.

Direct economic losses for the year totalled around $365 billion US ($335 billion US of which was from the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake). This is approximately 0.37% of the World GDP this year.

There is also much potential observed through CATDAT earthquake data from the past 110 years for further insurance potential in lower HDI locations where rapid development is occurring, leading to increasing economic losses if an earthquake occurs.

The CATDAT Damaging Earthquake database contains much data suitable for use in many sectors from earthquake loss estimation, to risk mapping, for insurance purposes and simply as a validated dataset to reduce the erratic values of socio-economic losses quoted wrongly throughout a number of sources. It has been shown that the traditional view that social and economic losses are increasing exponentially should be treated with caution. The dataset contains many more earthquakes with socio-economic data than other earthquake databases and additionally much trend analysis and hopefully this has led to more populated trends. Large natural disaster losses are extremely difficult to quantify using a single number. Thus, CATDAT utilises a lower bound, upper bound and best estimate value, using expert judgement; yet also presents all data to the user.

With the advent of earthquake-report.com reporting 24 hours a day, 365.2422 days per year, the Worldwide CATDAT Damaging Earthquakes Database is now also updated in real time. 2011 has been the first entire year that has been covered and we hope that with your support and funding that we can continue the service in 2012 and the coming years.

Over 12300 earthquakes show over 8.49 million deaths since the beginning of earthquake records. Earthquakes in the 20th and 21st centuries have already caused approximately $3.14 trillion (2011 HNDECI-Adjusted int. dollars) damage (of this around 20% has occurred in 2011, mostly due to Tohoku). Collection of building damage for historic earthquakes demonstrates the vulnerability of traditional building stocks such as masonry, adobe and badly constructed reinforced concrete. However, given the population increase around the world, there has been a significant reduction in loss of life due to earthquakes compared to what should be expected. This has come through a combination of country development, implementation of better building practice to resist earthquake forces and a more stable world, allowing for earthquake insurance and protection of financial assets.

Many of the references for this paper are included in associated papers and over 19000 individual sources of information have been used to create the data in the CATDAT damaging earthquakes database.

It is often said: Figures rule the world. The only sure thing is: Figures show how it is ruled.

J.W. Goethe (1749-1832)

6 Main References

Given the fact that over 19000 individual sources of information have been used in the CATDAT Damaging Earthquakes database, only the main references will be shown in this list. Please refer to the following papers for more information or email me to get more details.

Daniell, J.E., Gibson, G. [2011f] “A review of all Australian Damaging Earthquakes and their contribution to knowledge of earthquake risk in Australia.”, Geophysical Research Abstracts Vol. 13, EGU2011-4934.

Daniell, J.E., Khazai, B., Slingby, A. and Wenzel, F. [2011g] “A Country-by-Country Building Inventory and a Building Vulnerability Index for use in different Natural Disaster applications” Geophysical Research Abstracts Vol. 13, EGU2011-4948-1.

Appendix A: Summary pages of each 2011 damaging earthquake

The following section contains a summary of each 2011 damaging earthquake. Much more information is included in the full database and on earthquake-report.com; however, the section below provides a useful overview. It should be noted that much discrepancy is shown in values, and the author takes no responsibility for misuse. Most data is from government sources. Should the reader require more information, much more data on each earthquake is housed in the CATDAT Damaging Earthquakes database.
Simply email me at j.e.daniell@gmail.com, or use the contact details on the back page. Again, I welcome any feedback, as there will no doubt be discrepancies, additions, possible other sources of information and unbeknown data to me. However, I have done my best to minimise errors.

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In particular, I’m very interested in the losses in the Mineral, Virginia Earthquake in August 2011. I notice that you have the data for total economic losses for that earthquake (250 million $). Do you also have data about the losses in Washington DC area during that earthquake?